Since our previous blog post, Shopify has updated their system so that the duty is calculated and displayed separately during checkout. Because of this, instead of adding a flat £5 charge to shipping to cover this cost, the duty will be charged according to the number of product classifications, and we will only add £1.50 which covers the duty handling fee (charged by the carrier) and increased overall transaction cost.

France: On 1 July 2026, the French government suspended the small parcel tax Taxe sur les Petits Colis (TPC). Therefore French customers will not need to pay the €2 TPC, but they will need to pay the €3 customs duty at checkout, the same as other EU customers.

Italy: Italy are introducing a €2 fee from the 1 October 2026. This is a customs administration fee for items posted from outside of the EU that are valued at under €150. Currently it's not clear if this national fee will stack on top of the EU fee. We will make announcements and provide updates when there are any.

Royal Mail has also announced new arrangements to deal with the changes. For our customers, there will be no other additional increases for most EU destinations, except for the following locations:

• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Czechia
• Greece
• Hungary
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Poland
• Romania
• Slovenia

We need to use a different Royal Mail service to be able to handle both the import tax and duty charges for the countries above, so that there will be no delay or surprise charges to the customer when the package reaches customs clearance. The service works out more expensive for lightweight packages, but above 1kg the prices are similar to the old prices.